


Y is for Yearning

by chileancarmenere



Series: Alistair Alphabet [25]
Category: Dragon Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:23:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chileancarmenere/pseuds/chileancarmenere





	Y is for Yearning

When they turn eighteen, trainee templars are placed at their local Circle for a trial period of six months. At the end of their trial period, if they show proper aptitude for the duties of the templar, they take their vows and are inducted into the Order. Alistair is sent with his friends to the Ferelden Circle, where he spends long days guarding mages that shoot him nervous, appraising glances. Likely, they’re wondering how strict or violent or abusive he’s going to be. It makes him sick to his stomach.

One night, he is shaken awake by his roommate. “Alistair! Hey! Wake up!”

“Wha…” he mumbles. “What’s going on?” If it’s another escapee drill, he swears he’ll take his vows as a brother instead.

“Gilly just got another shipment diverted. Come on, or there’ll be none left.”

“A shipment of what?” Alistair asks. But even before his roommate hesitates, choosing his words with care, Alistair knows what. He’s seen the glassy look in his fellow trainees’ eyes, the hunger and yearning in their faces when they see a mage passing by, trailing a cloud of lyrium in the air.

“I don’t…” Alistair begins. His roommate shakes his head. “Come on! This shit’s awesome!”

Beneath the bluster, Alistair sees that he’s scared. He hears it in the tough, forceful way he pronounces shit, in the wide eyes and shaking hands. If the templars discovered that the trainees huddle downstairs in the storage room and inhale magic dust, they’d be flogged at best, hung at worst for theft of Chantry property. More than that, however, is the fear of ending up like the beggars on street corners. These beggars have sunken eyes that are rimmed with an unusual bright blue. They grab at passing strangers, croaking and moaning for the _dwarf dust, the dust, please sir, just one coin, it’s been so long_. When a mage passes by them, the beggars leap up and chase them, drawn by the sharp silvery scent. Templars have to accompany mages in places where dust beggars crouch, to beat them off their charges.

But the pull of the lyrium is magnetic, and his roommate shrugs, leaving Alistair caught between his own fear and his own desire to dull the horror of being a templar.

In the end, he goes. He descends to the storage rooms below the tower, where at least a dozen trainees are crowded around Gilly in the dark. In the girl’s hands, a bowl of silvery-blue powder emits a light, barely illuminating her face. The trainees drop a coin at Gilly’s feet and dip a hand into the bowl, taking a pinch between forefinger and thumb. She swats at the hands of greedy trainees who try to take more than they pay for. Alistair’s roommate gets his own pinch and lowers it reverently onto his tongue. His eyelids flutter, and Alistair catches his expression. It’s the expression of a starving man who has just tasted beef dripping in fat, the expression of a sick and injured man who spots the healer. It’s yearning that is satisfied.

Gilly waves and winks at Alistair. “Fancy a pinch?”

Alistair turns on his heel and walks out.


End file.
